Joining together fabric parts knitted on the flat knitting machine during a knitting process can allow simplification or omission of a sewing process in a later stage. By the application of this technique to the knitting of knitwear such as a sweater, the knitwear can be formed in a tubular form in a seamless manner via the flat knitting machine.
The applicant previously proposed the knitting technique of forming the knitwear into a tubular form in Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 3(1991)-75656. The proposed knitting technique is applicable to a so-called two-bed flat knitting machine comprising front and back needle beds arranged opposite to each other, for knitting a knitted fabric with alternate needles of front and back needle beds, for example, using odd needles for a front fabric part and even needles for a back fabric part. According to this knitting technique, empty needles for transference of loop of each fabric part can be always kept on the opposite needle bed. This enables several structure patterns of front stitches and back stitches being mixed, such as links, purl stitches, and ribs, to be knitted in a tubular form and also enables the sleeve to move transversely to be joined to a body.
The proposed knitting technique is also applicable to a four-bed flat knitting machine further comprising another pair of front and back needle beds. In this case, front fabric parts of e.g. sleeves and a body, can be knitted with needles of a lower front needle bed and an upper back needle bed, and also back fabric parts thereof can be knitted with needles of a lower back needle bed and an upper front needle bed. Thus, when the knitting technique is applied to the four-bed flat knitting machine, there is no need to allot the front fabric part to the odd needles and the back fabric part to the even needles, as is required when applied to the two-bed knitting machine.
FIG. 9 shows a sweater 101 of set-in sleeve as an example of the knitwear. FIG. 10 shows a pattern of a body 105 and a sleeve 103. For the set-in sleeve, a sleeve attaching angle θ is determined by a height h of a sleeve cap 109. On the other hand, for a T-sleeve having no sleeve cap, the sleeve attaching angle θ is set to be a right angle. In the set-in sleeve, as the sleeve cap increases in height, the sleeve attaching angle θ decreases and the sleeve falls downward increasingly. FIG. 11-A shows knitting steps for knitting the sweater 101 of the set-in sleeve seamlessly by the flat knitting machine, and FIG. 11-B schematically shows the knitting in the respective stages R1-R5 of FIG. 11-A.
The sweater 101 is knitted in the following manner: The body 105 and the right sleeve 103r and left sleeve 1031 are each knitted in the form of a tubular body, starting at hems 107r, 1071 (Stage R1). The body 105 and the sleeves 103r, 1031 in the form of the tubular body are simultaneously knitted up to underarms, while increasing a diameter of the tubular body (Stage R2). It should be noted that the right sleeve 103r is on the right-hand side as viewed from a wearer, in other words, on the left-hand side as viewed in the drawing. The body 105 and the sleeves 103r, 1031 are joined together at the underarms 108 and formed into a single large tubular body (Stage R3). In this stage, the line connecting between Q0 and Q1 (line Q0-Q1) at the underarm 108 of the body 105 and the line connecting between Q6 and Q7 (line Q6-Q7) of the sleeve are joined together to form an underarm neighboring portion of an armhole 117. This joining is carried out in such a manner that while a yarn is fed to the needles holding loops of the sleeves 103 and the body 105 in a circular pattern and whenever the body and the sleeves are knitted at a ratio of the number of courses of the body knitted to the number of courses of the sleeves knitted of one to one, the sleeves 103r, 1031 are shifted toward the body 105. As a result of this, a width of the body is reduced to a width of the shoulder.
Then, after the underarm portion of the armhole 117 is formed, the line Q1-Q2 of the body 105 and the line Q7-Q8 of the sleeve 103 are joined together. This joining is carried out in such a manner that whenever the body and the sleeves are knitted at a ratio of the number of courses of the body knitted to the number of courses of the sleeves knitted of two to one, the loops of sleeves 103r, 1031 are shifted toward the body 105 and are overlapped with the loops of the body 105. Then, the tubular body is knitted with its diameter reduced gradually (Stage R4). The ratio of the number of courses of the body knitted to the number of courses of the sleeves knitted has such a relationship that as the proportion of the number of courses of the sleeves knitted increases, the sleeve cap increases in height, while on the other hand, as the proportion of the number of courses of the body knitted increases, the sleeve cap decreases in height. For the sleeve, no course knitting of the sleeves is performed. During this knitting, a neckline 113 is also formed. In the stage R5, the forming of loop courses of the sleeves 103 is ended and only the forming of loop courses of the body 105 is performed. Whenever a predetermined number of loop courses of the body 105 are formed, the loops of the sleeves held on the needles are shifted toward the body 105 and are overlapped with the loops of the body 105, whereby the line Q2-Q3 of the body 105 and the line Q8-Q9 of the sleeve are joined together in the armhole 117.
Thereafter, the front body 105f and the back body 105b are joined together at the shoulder and bound off. The knitting of the sweater 101 is ended in the manner mentioned above.
For the production of garment, it is important to design the garment considering not only an outline or silhouette of the garment but also a contour and movement of the human body. For the sweater 101 having the set-in sleeves joined to the body, it is necessary to design the sweater in such a manner as to put no limitation on the movement of a wearer's arm when raising or falling. For a textile product of low stretch, separate cloths are sewn in the textile at the joining portion between the sleeves and the body to form gussets so that when the textile is stretched at the underarm portions in response to the movement of the wearer's arms, the textile can be prevented from being torn or broken, or conversely, the movement of the wearer's arm can be prevented from being limited by the textile.
For knitwear having higher stretch than textile, it is not common to use equivalent to the gusset of the textile, but the stretch of the knitwear alone is not sufficient to the act of being stretched at the underarm portions.
It is an object of the present invention to disclose a method of forming a gusset in knitwear during the knitting to join together a body and sleeves of the knitwear knitted in a seamless manner by using a flat knitting machine, and knitwear having the gusset formed therein.